Section 27

27. If the earth transmits the generative soul to growing
things- or retains it while allowing a vestige of it to
constitute the
vegetal principle in them- at once the earth is ensouled, as
our flesh
is, and any generative power possessed by the plant world is of its
bestowing: this phase of the soul is immanent in the body of the
growing thing, and transmits to it that better element by which it
differs from the broken off part no longer a thing of growth but a
mere lump of material.

But does the entire body of the earth similarly receive anything
from the soul?

Yes: for we must recognize that earthly material broken off from
the main body differs from the same remaining continuously attached;
thus stones increase as long as they are embedded, and, from the
moment they are separated, stop at the size attained.

We must conclude, then, that every part and member of the earth
carries its vestige of this principle of growth, an under-phase of
that entire principle which belongs not to this or that member but
to the earth as a whole: next in order is the nature [the
soul-phase],
concerned with sensation, this not interfused [like the vegetal
principle] but in contact from above: then the higher soul and the
Intellectual-Principle, constituting together the being known as
Hestia [Earth-Mind] and Demeter [Earth-Soul]- a nomenclature
indicating the human intuition of these truths, asserted in the
attribution of a divine name and nature.